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Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Malayan
I may have posted half of this set in the past, but I'm not sure. In any case,
I just learned that this is a Malayan man from 1868 photographed by John Lamprey.
The implicit condescension in these pictures disturbs me. I majored in Anthropology and even in Physical Anthropology we never used this type of picture. I know you are not running them in that spirit, Jerry. But be aware that these can be attributed to a "colonialist" mentality.
Yes, there is condescention, and I've mentioned the troubling aspects of these photos in earlier series. They were, however, considered serious academic efforts at the time to a large extent. The work of Maurice Portman, shown and described later in this set, is probably the worst example of exploitation, manipulation, and condescention out there.
I am fully aware of the sensibilities of Big Dude above and they are not necessarily misplaced because incidences of condescension are a matter of historical record. However, history must be judged by the values of its time and it is also just a fact that in the period covered in today's series, which coincides with the height of the British Empire, whence the provenance of many of the images, was not perforce a period of what today would be regarded as racism and its concomitant colonialism. To begin with, the Victorians were not just explorers in the the physical sense but also of the mind and it is from this time that the categorizing of the world's flora and fauna derive as they strove to understand their world in a scientific way. In that light, I do not see this series as implicitly condescending at all. It is just simply using the new medium of photography to understand how diverse humanity was. That the subjects are mostly naked is of little consequence given that often, they had far fewer complexes about nudity that we had or have and we did the same to ourselves. It was done to me. I did not feel that I was being abused or lost my human dignity.
It is wrong to think that the European empires of the 19th and 29th centuries were also intrinsically predicated on white racial or cultural supremacy. You only have to read Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885) to understand his admiration for the African, as a far removed from a concept of the "noble savage" as it gets. Many in the East India Company "went native", wearing local clothes - more suitable for the climate - learning and speaking the local languages, marrying into native families and even circumcising their sons. (I had a great aunt, whose portrait, painted by my great uncle in Glasgow, hangs on my wall, born in Pondicherry to a French father and a Scottish mother. She married a Scotsman, a relative, and lived in Darjeeling. They were in the tea trade. She spoke English with a slight Scottish accent, fluent French and perfect, accentless Hindi (then known a Hindustani). She was just the product of her world... and told me that as soon as she arrived in Scotland, she was homesick for India and once again in India, she was homesick for Scotland.) It is imperative to understand that ordinary lives, far removed from the ideological, political or military, were lived as we live today - playing the hand we are dealt. Most of us would be hard pressed today to believe that there were those in India who opposed independence. It will come as a surprise to many to know that Kenya, a colony for a mere 60 years in order to qualify for that status funding, originally asked to become a British protectorate in order to stop the slavers operating out of Zanzibar, or that the Kingdom of Tonga asked to join the Empire as a self-governing kingdom in order to join the Sterling Zone. There is in each of these brief examples the need to see that "colonialism" also had a positive side in an imperfect world.
Of course there was and remains racism. I have been the unprovoked victim of it myself too often not to know that. I am also better placed than most to know where photography such as this can lead IN THE WRONG HANDS. I do not see any perversity, malintent or condescension in the above series. Just an honest collision with the world as it was then and a desire to know and understand it.
I've been doing my own physical anthropology study on body hair distribution and patterns. My "subjects" almost all appreciate my interest, brushing, and shampooing. Not a few of them (particularly when body shaming was the norm in the gay community) expressed gratitude for my affectionate interest and said they'd felt marginalized because they were hairy, back when gay culture was hung up on the "Greek Ideal." Keep up the good work!-Dee Exx
Oh, yes. I remember when bears where shunned by certain gay circles and then eventually became one of the most recognizable and popular subgroups. Some of it had to do with baby boomers getting older, hairier, and heavier with age, lol, but some of it was a taste transformation.
The implicit condescension in these pictures disturbs me. I majored in Anthropology and even in Physical Anthropology we never used this type of picture. I know you are not running them in that spirit, Jerry. But be aware that these can be attributed to a "colonialist" mentality.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is condescention, and I've mentioned the troubling aspects of these photos in earlier series. They were, however, considered serious academic efforts at the time to a large extent. The work of Maurice Portman, shown and described later in this set, is probably the worst example of exploitation, manipulation, and condescention out there.
DeleteTimes change. Early anthropologists had their biases, meaning overt racism, hence all the racial hierarchies and the like.
DeleteYes. Thankfully, current methods are much more in keeping with decent values.
DeleteI am fully aware of the sensibilities of Big Dude above and they are not necessarily misplaced because incidences of condescension are a matter of historical record. However, history must be judged by the values of its time and it is also just a fact that in the period covered in today's series, which coincides with the height of the British Empire, whence the provenance of many of the images, was not perforce a period of what today would be regarded as racism and its concomitant colonialism. To begin with, the Victorians were not just explorers in the the physical sense but also of the mind and it is from this time that the categorizing of the world's flora and fauna derive as they strove to understand their world in a scientific way. In that light, I do not see this series as implicitly condescending at all. It is just simply using the new medium of photography to understand how diverse humanity was. That the subjects are mostly naked is of little consequence given that often, they had far fewer complexes about nudity that we had or have and we did the same to ourselves. It was done to me. I did not feel that I was being abused or lost my human dignity.
ReplyDeleteIt is wrong to think that the European empires of the 19th and 29th centuries were also intrinsically predicated on white racial or cultural supremacy. You only have to read Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885) to understand his admiration for the African, as a far removed from a concept of the "noble savage" as it gets. Many in the East India Company "went native", wearing local clothes - more suitable for the climate - learning and speaking the local languages, marrying into native families and even circumcising their sons. (I had a great aunt, whose portrait, painted by my great uncle in Glasgow, hangs on my wall, born in Pondicherry to a French father and a Scottish mother. She married a Scotsman, a relative, and lived in Darjeeling. They were in the tea trade. She spoke English with a slight Scottish accent, fluent French and perfect, accentless Hindi (then known a Hindustani). She was just the product of her world... and told me that as soon as she arrived in Scotland, she was homesick for India and once again in India, she was homesick for Scotland.) It is imperative to understand that ordinary lives, far removed from the ideological, political or military, were lived as we live today - playing the hand we are dealt. Most of us would be hard pressed today to believe that there were those in India who opposed independence. It will come as a surprise to many to know that Kenya, a colony for a mere 60 years in order to qualify for that status funding, originally asked to become a British protectorate in order to stop the slavers operating out of Zanzibar, or that the Kingdom of Tonga asked to join the Empire as a self-governing kingdom in order to join the Sterling Zone. There is in each of these brief examples the need to see that "colonialism" also had a positive side in an imperfect world.
Of course there was and remains racism. I have been the unprovoked victim of it myself too often not to know that. I am also better placed than most to know where photography such as this can lead IN THE WRONG HANDS. I do not see any perversity, malintent or condescension in the above series. Just an honest collision with the world as it was then and a desire to know and understand it.
Thank you Julian, for an erudite and balanced comment.
DeleteI've been doing my own physical anthropology study on body hair distribution and patterns. My "subjects" almost all appreciate my interest, brushing, and shampooing. Not a few of them (particularly when body shaming was the norm in the gay community) expressed gratitude for my affectionate interest and said they'd felt marginalized because they were hairy, back when gay culture was hung up on the "Greek Ideal."
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!-Dee Exx
Oh, yes. I remember when bears where shunned by certain gay circles and then eventually became one of the most recognizable and popular subgroups. Some of it had to do with baby boomers getting older, hairier, and heavier with age, lol, but some of it was a taste transformation.
DeleteSome very interesting opinions and ways of looking at things in the comments.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and I can see this issue from a lot of angles, all worthy of discussion.
Delete